Kannon – about my main character – by Rhonda Roberts

My main character, Kannon Dupree, is named after the Japanese Bodhisattva of Compassion. The Japanese words for Kannon actually mean ‘the one who hears all cries for help’ and a Bodhisattva is an enlightened being who has chosen to stay on Earth to help liberate all sentient life forms from suffering. She can be traced back to an earlier Indian Bodhisattva called Avalokitesvara and is known in China as Guan Yin.

Kannon Dupree was two years old when she was left for dead in a cave in the Kanangra-Boyd National Park and suffered extreme post traumatic stress syndrome. To help the little girl sleep at night Yuki, Kannon’s adopted mother, used to hold her and call on the Bodhisattva to heal her. Eventually the little girl thought that it was her own name.

I first came across Kannon, the Buddhist icon, when I was living in Nagoya, Japan. I’m not a Buddhist but I found her serenely smiling statues very attractive. She’s a very popular religious figure in Japan and there are temples to her everywhere. There’s a big temple to the Bodhisattva in Nagoya near Osu Kannon train station. When I was living there it was right in the middle of an old part of the city, full of little temples and tiny old markets selling antiques and kimonos. So whenever I’d visit the temple it would seem as though I’d travelled back in time.

It seemed natural to use the name for my main character.

Rhonda Roberts lives in the Illawarra just south of Sydney. She’s currently at work on Hoodwink, the follow up to Gladiatrix. Rhonda has a PhD in Science, Technology and Society and was an academic for eleven years. During this time she worked in Australia, the United States and in Japan, where she lived for three years. Visit her website at www.rhondarobertsauthor.com

Download a PDF extract from Gladiatrix